


A Mother's Musings

by Smoltenica



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Angst, Christian ideas explored, Church of England, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, depressing family-centric tale, this should probably have a different title but I cannot think of a suitable one yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smoltenica/pseuds/Smoltenica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing and nobody was the same after the train incident in 1949. Whatever happened to Eustace's snobby, forward-thinking, teetotalling, vegetarian mother? An exploration of motherhood, sisterhood, the nature of faith and the impact of grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. grimy scraps and withered leaves

Alberta Scrubb folded the magazine with an impatient sigh.

She was not entirely certain why she felt so ill at ease today, but the beige sitting room walls seemed almost to loom at her, threatening to envelop her in their paleness. Perhaps that was just it- their paleness. Rarely had she ever left the sitting room walls without a painting; as a journalist she was generally well aware of the latest modern masterpieces, and was quick to inform Harold about which copies they should look into.

Recently, however, she had found herself somewhat dissatisfied with the upcoming artists. Ellsworth Kelly, for example, was clearly talented, and his mastery of form and the way in which he challenged traditional concepts of art was intellectually marvellous, but when she had opened the latest Whitney Annual she had found herself feeling curiously empty.

Harold would know what to do; she would ask him when he came home. He was at a discussion forum at the London School of Economics regarding Hayek's shocking essay on "The Intellectuals and Socialism". It had caused quite a stir in the United States earlier in the spring, and had rankled not only herself and Harold, but several of Harold's associates. Saying that their Keynesian consensus was equivalent to a serfdom!- and painting intellectuals as being unfairly elevated for holding "progressive political views"! It was despicable, really. To an extent, Alberta wasn't entirely certain why there needed to be a debate about it.

Then again, perhaps there were other sides to the argument that she was unaware of. When Harold came home, he would explain everything. He was so wonderful at explaining things, Harold. It was a trait he had passed to their son, for which Alberta was exceptionally grateful.

_See, Alberta?_ she heard his youthful voice say, so filled with confidence and authority. Only a child, but he possessed a level of statesmanship as he had pointed at his insect collection. _This is the chi_ \- she remembered how he had screwed his eyes up momentarily- _chitinous exoskeleton. And since it's in three parts, there's the head, the thorax- and that's actually the abdomen!_ How eagerly he had poked and pointed, and how proud she had been of him, her knowledgeable son.

But even as she pride rose, a dark cloud rolled across and the light fluttered and faded.

How many years had it been since Eustace Clarence had shown her his insect collections? How many years had it been since the days when she never had to tell him to take his hands out of his pockets, or to stop leaning against door frames?

_Eustace Clarence_.

Why, oh why was he staying with the Pevensies? They were so common! Her brother had given Helen far too much sway with the children. Eustace was so much more than they were, and yet he was spending so much time with them! And the outcome! Slouched shoulders, hands in pockets, stories of adventures. Adventures! She and Harold had tried so very hard to teach Eustace Clarence how to be sensible, she had even been delighted when he had taken his interest in insects.

_"You'll be a scientist yet, Eustace Clarence,_ " she had said, and how he had beamed. But that interest had died, long ago, had died from those months when she, in her charity, had taken Lucy and Edmund Pevensie into her home. And instead of hearing about wings, or the lengths of insects legs as proportionate to their bodies, she had been gifted by tales of a place called 'Narnia'. A creature- lion, tiger?- named 'Aslan'. Comments, stories, far too many mentions of that wretched Jill Pole!

There was nothing special in the girl. Even her name spoke volumes of her plainness. Eustace Clarence could do so much better than her!

_"It's just a passing phase yet,"_ Harold had told her, smiling. _"Don't worry, he'll grow up. I did- and then I found you."_

But to find, one would have to look first, she thought, and she knew that the Pevensies would not encourage her son to look further.

_"Eustace's friend, Jill, she was marvellous, Aunt Alberta,"_ she heard Edmund say on one of his visits, far too cheerfully, _"When she heard that Eustace and I were at-"_

Eustace and I. They wouldn't even use his full name. Not that she held anything against her nieces and nephews, not really. Peter was intelligent, and Edmund was reasonably gifted. She remembered the days when she had thought Edmund had showed a glimmer of the talent of her own Eustace Clarence- how long ago those days were, before that time of darkness and confusion and hatred. War changed everything. As for the girls, Susan was simply far too flighty, and Lucy was so terribly immature.

And then there was Jill Pole!

But then, she thought of Eustace Clarence once more, and she felt that glow rise in her heart.

_He must feel it, too_ , she thought, _my son- always my son._

And he would grow up, she was sure of it. Her pride and her joy, even through all those times of disappointment- he would stand up straight, and he would became a man as wonderful and assured as his father. This thing with the Pevensies- he was only young, after all. Besides, Harold assured her that Jill Pole would fade away as the months passed and grew grey with age.

It was just as Alberta had settled into the lounge that the doorbell rang.


	2. Chapter 2

Alberta made a quick mental checklist of possible callers at this time of the day. Victor might have returned from his weekend away in the country with Helen, but she could not fathom why he would come calling today. Unless Eustace Clarence had somehow been caught up in something- unpleasant?

But no, not her Eustace Clarence, he was a reasonable boy for all his faults. _(He was her son.)_

So she rose, still mystified, as the doorbell rang again, and fought the childish urge to peer through the peephole. Instead, she grasped the handle (lovely cool brass), and pulled the door open.

Before her stood a uniformed constable, aluminium report case in one hand.

 _Constable,_ she thought, wondering whether this was some strange alternate universe. A Constable.

Quickly she wondered whether she should speak.

 _It wasn't Eustace Clarence,_ she wanted to say, immediately followed by the thought, _Harold would never have done anything, it was his colleagues, the paper was always going to be controversial_!

But before she could speak, the constable cleared his throat.

He was young, she thought, almost a boy- not much older than her brother's son, Peter. And he looked nervous. She could detect a slight hunch in his shoulders and fought the urge to tell him to stand up straighter.

"Are you Mrs Alberta Scrubb, wife of Mr Harold Scrubb and mother of Eustace Clarence Scrubb?" the constable asked, and Alberta detected a strain of unwillingness in his voice. He looked down at the report in his hands and shuffled his left toe perceptibly. "And are you the sister of Professor Victor Andrew Pevensie?"

Something inexplicable gripped at Alberta, and she felt as though she had been plastered to a cardboard backing with no space to move.

"Yes," she said weakly and wondered that the voice was hers. "Do- do please come in."

He half shuffled inside, peering around the hallway.

 _And do mind your own business_ , she thought snappishly.

"Come through," she said instead, her marionette hand gesturing at the lounge in the sitting room. "Please, take a seat."

The constable visibly swallowed.

"Mrs Scrubb, Ma'am," he said, a slight tremor in his voice. "I think it might be best if you took a seat."

_I think it might be best if you took a seat._

Alberta steeled her back. "I think I would prefer to stand," she snapped, unsure of whether she felt more petulant or afraid. "Please, Constable-"

"Watson," he said, clearing his throat. "Constable Watson, Mrs Scrubb. And- that-"

"And please say what you wish to say," she finished curtly.

He looked as though someone had stuck a pin through his chest.

"I'm afraid I have some terrible news to tell you," he said somewhat thickly, eyes trained upon the left cornice above the bay window. Alberta had a wild, inane flash of thankfulness that she had cleaned the cornices the other day. "There- there's been a train accident with the British Railways. A train- derailed, it must have been taking a corner too quickly. Your son, Eustace Clarence Scrubb, was involved in the accident and he sustained serious injuries. He was taken to St Bartholomew's Hospital for treatment, but he died from his injuries almost immediately upon arrival."

_Train accident. Eustace Clarence Scrubb. St Bartholomew's. Died from his injuries. Eustace Clarence Scrubb. Died from his injuries. Died from his injuries._

"I'm sorry," said Alberta's voice, from Alberta's lips. The sound echoed in her head like a fork that had been dropped in the sink. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

_Eustace Clarence Scrubb. Train accident. Died from his injuries. Died. Eustace Clarence Scrubb. Died. Died._

The constable looked stricken.

"Mrs Srubb," he said, a crack creeping into his voice. "I'm afraid there's more."

More? Alberta fought a wild urge to laugh.

"Your- your brother, Professor Victor Andrew Pevensie- he was on the train as well."

Victor? But it couldn't be.

_"Victor, what it is it this time?"_

_A broad grin, and her irreverent brother, doffing his hat with a hint of a wink._

_"Look, I know it's not an ideal time, and I don't know when I'm going to be called up for this war, but Bertha, you should have a read of this! See what Old Possum turned out this month!" "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats? Victor, what is going wrong with your current research?"_

"But Victor was coming back from the country," she said stupidly. "He and Helen were returning from Herefordshire. He always drives. There must be a mistake, Constable Watson, there must be a mistake!"

_Yes, a mistake, and Eustace Clarence is fine, there has been no train accident, and he is not injured, he never went to St Bartholomew's. Victor is driving home from Herefordshire with Helen, and he will call tonight with some inane tale that Harold and I will laugh over. It has all been a mistake._

"Ma'am," said Constable Watson, and the tremor in his voice made her look at him. He was looking at her, too, and she felt his dark eyes coated with pity and trepidation. "Your brother and your son are currently at the mortuary in St Bartholomew's Hospital. You may go and identify them."

Identify.

"And what if I don't wish to?" she said brusquely.

"Ma'am," Constable Watson said gently, "please, will you go and identify them? You may wait for your husband to return home, but please, come. Your niece, Susan Pevensie, is out of the country, and we need you to-"

_We need you to._

Alberta did sit, then, very abruptly.

"There is more," she said flatly.

"I'm sorry," said Constable Watson, and he sounded it. "Your husband's wife, Helen, along with your nephews, Peter and Edmund Pevensie and your niece, Lucy Pevensie, were also involved in the train crash. They are currently lying in the mortuary at St Bartholomew's."

 _Helen_ , she thought, and saw the bubbly, friendly (if somewhat vapid) woman her brother had met while walking through Putney.

_"Victor, why did you choose her? You could have had Petulia."_

_"But Alberta, Petulia is not Helen."_

Peter, she thought, and she saw him with his earnest smile, his hands shoved ungracefully into his pockets. Edmund. Edmund, who had once almost been her son's equal. Lucy. An immature girl, but her niece, and only just finished her schooling education. She had been about to enter university. And Eustace Clarence. _Eustace Clarence._

"Please go," she murmured, grasping at the lounge armrest. "Please leave me."

"Ma'am-"

"Go!" she cried, and threw the nearest vase across the room. It shattered, a disappointingly quiet sound.

 _And I will have to clean up the splinters_ , she thought.

There were splinters behind her eyes, too. Or were those tears? She wasn't sure.

_I will speak with Harold, and we will reason what it is._

_Harold._

Harold did not know. Quickly, she jerked her head up.

Constable Watson had stood and was leaving the room.

"Wait!" she called, and he turned around.

 _You have no right to look anguished_ , she thought, wondering why she was not angry or irritated in the slightest _. You have not been told that your son, your brother, his wife and three of his children are lying in a mortuary. You have not been told to identify your family, you have not_ -

"You haven't- has anyone told my husband?" she asked, piteously.

Constable Watson cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said, "there were a lot of people involved in this accident, and our protocol is to call upon the home of relatives. Your husband is-"

"At the London School of Economics."

He nodded. "I will try to see if he can be contacted," he said, and Alberta nodded mutely. "Goodbye, Mrs Scrubb. I- I'm very sorry for your loss."

_I'm very sorry for your loss._

Alberta waited until she heard the door close before she closed her eyes.

_Her marionette eyes, and her marionette hand that came to rest on her stuffed, cold forehead._

The tears did not come.


	3. on broken blinds and chimeny pots

Constable Watson was true to his word.

At ten past two that the afternoon, Harold came through the door. From his slow gait, from the way he took his hat off, from the tiredness in his eyes, Alberta knew. He raised his eyes to look at her, and in them she read the grief, the pain.

"You were right," he said, his voice a blessed relief in the roaring silence. "I shouldn't have let him go."

_No, you shouldn't._

The words were almost on Alberta's lips when they turned to ash and fell to the carpet (she still needed to clean the shards from the vase).

"He was with his cousins- my nephews, my niece," she told him instead, dully. "It wasn't your fault."

But it wasn't theirs, either, and they, too, lay in a cold mortuary, awaiting identification. It was the train. Alberta tried to summon up her anger, but it had deserted her, slipped like a thread through a broken needle head.

It was thirteen past two when she met Harold's eyes again, still weary, still sad. (But still strong.) _I must be strong, too_.

"I suppose we should head to St Bartholomew's," she said presently.

In some far distant chamber of her mind something laughed. How inane, how ridiculous, it sounded almost as if she were talking to Cynthia. _"I suppose we should purchase some flour, then_ " or, _"I suppose we should hand in our articles. Are you heading past the office?"_

Harold nodded slowly, as though the very motion gave him pain.

"Come," he said, holding the door open. "I'll drive."

As opposed to taking the train.

Alberta closed the door, so cool to touch, and closed her eyes.

 _Eustace Clarence,_ she thought, as a small blue-eyed child walked smartly through the swimming darkness. He looked at her, puffed out his chest, held up a butterfly, pinned to a cardboard backing. Then the darkness rippled, and he was fourteen, standing beside the sitting room copy of Guernica, shoulders straight, eyes forlorn. _Eustace Clarence._ Then she saw him again, sixteen years old and satchel in hand, walking towards the Pevensies, waiting by the pavement. He gave a smart wave and faded away into the inky black, washed behind a wall as realistic as a Dali.

The car pulled up outside St Bartholomew's.

* * *

Inside the walls and floor were bare, lit by a murky green light.

 _We have lingered beneath the chambers of the sea_.

Harold had read that poem to her, she recalled, and it had been on a warm summer's day, the rare sun edging cautiously around the low-lying clouds. It had always been special to her, and she had encouraged Eustace Clarence to read it. He might have read it, and even liked it, she thought blankly, had he not discovered George MacDonald. _I write not for children but for the childlike_ \- wasn't that how the man's ridiculous statement went? Eustace Clarence had quoted it at her several times until she had lost her temper at him. In this moment, she could hear Eustace Clarence saying it, even now; that strange little inflection at the word 'childlike', the way he would glance at her, almost furtively. How she had hated that furtive look.

_He will not give me that look anymore._

But of course he would, that was absurd. Eustace Clarence could not simply disappear just like that. He would come back home and she would realise that he had not folded his bed sheets properly and she would berate him, and then he would come to dinner. They might even discuss art afterwards. She would like that, when she found another painting for the sitting room wall.

_Rothko's swell._

Beside her, Harold took her hand in his. His grip was firm, familiar, and she pressed back, glad to have his solid flesh as a (reminder).

A young, bright-eyed man with dull blonde hair came to meet them.

"Mrs Alberta Scrubb and Mr Harold Scrubb?" he said, checking the clipboard. He had the mildest hint of a Cockney accent. Harold murmured an assent. "I'm Dr Louis Brealey. It's nice to meet you," he beamed, sticking out a hand. "I work here," he added as an afterthought, as though Alberta and Harold had not yet made the connection.Neither Alberta nor Harold took his hand.

Dr Louis Brealey looked at them dubiously, and at his proffered hand, before retracting it to wipe against his doctor's coat. "Er, well, through here," he said awkwardly, gesturing to a dark blue door with a glass panel, patterned as with metal netting.

As she passed through the door, Alberta glanced at the man who was clearly trying to smile. She wished he would stop trying. Unlike the corridor before, this room was blindingly bright, and painfully white. It made Alberta feel strangely like she was at home in her sitting room. Waiting for Constable Watson. No, not waiting; he had come. And then he had said-

"Eustace Clarence!"

She felt, rather than heard, Harold's intake of breath.

Her first thought was, _he is so white_. A thousand thoughts pricked her mind: he must rest, she would make him soup. He needed a shower, his face was so dirty and brown-

Brown with dried blood.

She drew her hand back from his cheek.

Brown, all she could see was brown- a dirty, rusty brown that would once have been red. _Rothko_ , she thought wildly, _one of Rothko's abstracts_. But it had been her son's face that she had been looking at, it had been Eustace Clarence and his eyes were so wide, and his skin was so pale, and all she could see was brown, a cloudy brown that burnt at her eyelids and stung at her cheeks. _Harold_ , she wanted to say, but it hurt to speak and her lips were heavy. _Harold_!

"Yes," she heard Harold say distantly, "that is our son." Inside her stomach stirred like a spoon.

"Lovely!" Louis Brealey piped up.

Alberta's insides coiled, reared, and she drew herself up fiercely. The man looked startled, as if he was facing a sea serpent, or one of those ridiculous creatures Eustace Clarence had insisted upon babbling about not long after Lucy and Edmund had first stayed in Hampstead.

 _Lovely_ , she thought, and something near her eyes burned as she continued to stare at the man. He was now turning a shade of red, but it was not like the rusty red on Eustace Clarence's pale, still skin, not like that rusty wretched red (a splash ripping apart a blank, stretched canvas).

"Oh, well, not- lovely," the man amended, far too late, "I just mean- I'm glad- glad it's not the wrong body. We had a muddle up just a few weeks ago with this lady, Irene Pulver- honestly thought it was her, but her face was so smashed in, we needed to-"

"Don't try to make conversation," she snapped as Harold cut in at the same time, saying, "Mr Brealey, at least try to be a little less insensitive."

Louis Brealey gulped. "I'm sorry," he said.

Such empty words. _I'm sorry._ And Eustace Clarence still lay before her, though his body was wavering in the light.

"I believe my brother is also here," she said, and wondered that her voice was so strong, so clear. "I should- I should like to see him."

"Er, yes," Louis Brealey said, hurrying to the other side of the room. "We've identified Professor Victor Andrew Pevensie and his wife Mrs Helen-"

 _Victor_ , Alberta thought, Louis Brealey's words fading to an inexorably unforgiving pulse in her brain. There was no rusty red on his face, only that same paleness that made her think of the time he had broken his arm as a child. How afraid she'd been that he'd never be able to use his arm again; but he'd only looked at it and shrugged. _Don't worry, Bertha, it'll be ok_. His shrug, that careless shrug, how she knew that shrug. It was just so Victor, to brush off lightly things that any rational person would fret about. She had seen his sons, particularly Peter, give that very same shrug. It had been one of the few traits Eustace Clarence had picked up from his cousins that she had been loath to berate him for.

But there, why think of that? He wasn't shrugging now. _He will never shrug again_. She clapped her hand to her mouth and turned away. Harold moved, instinctively, touched her shoulder gently, almost hesitantly.

"I can't do this," she whispered, and fear like a blank canvas rippled through her stomach as she realised the truth in her words. "Harold, I-"

He pressed a brief kiss to her forehead.

"It- Alberta- I'll do it," he said, and she heard the cracks in his voice, heard his own fear.

Had Harold always been braver than she had? Perhaps, but she had never seen it. "Thank you," she breathed, her eyes shut. Around her, the world spun (almost like that time Victor had taken her to the park and then grabbed her hand, and they had spun, back when they were children)- only it felt that somehow the ground had fallen through, and she was suspended (marionette Bertha, raise your hand to your eyes and blink, and see the drop fall, fall, fall).

"How long can you keep the bodies?" she heard her voice say, breaking through the growing din.

Louis Brealey's voice was hesitant. "Mrs Scrubb, it's only a matter of days, we have to-"

"Please keep them as long as you can," she said curtly. "My niece is travelling back from America. Open casket funerals are distasteful, and I am sure she will want to see her family. Please keep their bodies as long as is possible."

"Yes, Ma'am!" said Louis Brealey, looking half terrified as he scuttled through the door.

When he had disappeared, she collapsed against Harold. He caught her and held her against his chest (like a broken doll).

"I'm here, Alberta," he whispered, "I'm here."

And she pressed her face against his collar and felt the material, warm and wet against her cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah sorry I keep forgetting to post chapters here because I have a finished version at ff.net! I should be fined. Apologies to anyone who is actually reading this.


	4. in a thousand furnished rooms

It was a church service.

 _I don't want it,_ had been her first thought when Harold suggested it.

 _Eustace Clarence would have wanted it_ , he had said, and she was glad she had not opened her mouth to voice her petulant thoughts. _And your brother, and Helen- hell, even the kids, Alberta. They would have wanted it._

And so they sat within a dark and dingy church behind a brick wall, a gharish painted roof that whispered oppressively of that horrid war and nights of blackout, and they listened to words- words! Words designed to bring comfort and joy, perhaps, but they were only words.

Glancing down the pew, she saw her niece, the beautiful Susan Pevensie, her dark eyes shuttered behind long lashes, her hair pulled back in an elegant twist. Susan Pevensie, who had perhaps lost more than Alberta- mother and father, and three siblings, in one fell swoop ( _but not her son_ , she thought, achingly, _not her only child_ ).

 _Not my flesh, but partly my blood_ , she thought, and felt something almost imperceptible pulse, and die away. Then the thought fluttered away from her mind before she could grasp hold of it.

It was good that Susan could be here, at any rate. She was glad that Susan had made the funeral. She had almost missed seeing her family's faces again, had almost screamed her way into the mortuary at St Bartholomew's before they were placed in the caskets.

But perhaps it would be better to not have seen their faces. So deathly pale, so unnaturally still. _And tinged with a dirty, rusty brown_.

Rusty brown, blood like soil.

_Rocky soil, your heart is rocky soil._

Where had that thought come from?

She glanced around wildly, but no one had spoken to her. She looked down to her niece once more.

Susan Pevensie did not look comforted, either. Her cheeks were pinched, and the powder sat in obvious contrast to the paleness of her face. And her hands; Alberta watched her fingers as they clutched almost too tightly at the order of service.

 _Words_ , she thought, _words_.

 _Now come, Alberta_ , she heard her mother say, and suddenly she was eight years old again, in a stiffly starched dress. They were waiting in that long line to eat the thin, dry wafer and everyone was oh so serious. _Don't fidget, you're in a church!_

B _ut Mummy- what are they playing?_

An impatient sigh of disappointment. _Alberta, it is 'Abide with Me', with the setting by Monk- surely you must know it by now!_

_I don't like it._

_Alberta!_

"Alberta?" she turned her head dully to the side. It felt so heavy upon her neck. Harold was staring at her, and she could feel his tenderness, his concern.

_If only it could touch me._

He reached out a hand to clasp hers. His grip was warm, firm, familiar; as though drowning she grasped at his fingers and swallowed, shuddering.

The organ began playing- a loud, booming instrument. Alberta didn't care much for the sound, it was nasal and loud and oh, it hurt, it hurt.

 _Eustace Clarence is lying beneath those pipes,_ she thought, _Eustace Clarence is in that walnut box, with a bible and a candle and puddle, where the celebrant sprinkled the water. Eustace Clarence is lying there, with his shoulders squared, as I always told him to square them, and he is wearing the suit Harold bought him for Christmas._

Was that grief or pain pulling at her heart? Or, worse, was it her imagination? There were times she felt she must be a heartless woman, a horrible mother.

But now they were singing, and she glanced down at the pewsheet Harold was holding out for her.

 _"I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;_  
 _Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;_  
 _Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?_ " she whispered, and all the while the bile grew in her throat.

 _Where is death's sting? It's here!_ she wanted to scream, pointing at her heart. _Where is grave's victory? It's lying there, with my son's body, with my brother's body, with his wife's body, with three of their children, my niece and nephews! There is its victory, can't you see?_

But tears clouded her vision, and when she opened her mouth, only a feeble croak that might once have been a sob escaped.

 _Where is your just God now, Eustace Clarence?_ a distant part of her mind whispered. _Where is your God?_

And then he was standing there in front of her, hands in his pockets- how she had hated Peter Pevensie for contaminating her son with that trait!- face strangely solemn, like a strange mirror staring back at her.

 _"But I have to believe in God, Alberta,"_ she heard him say, so seriously, _"or I can't make any sense of suffering, or- or death."_

It was the week after the bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she remembered, the week after that horrid and strange breakfast where Eustace Clarence had tried to defend war in spite of all its abominations. He had stopped at that breakfast, but the next week he had taken the conversation up again, and he had not stopped but continued talking, almost rapidly, as though afraid she would disappear into the wall and harden into stone.

_"You see- if there is no God, then death is- normal. Meaningless. It's just- well, we're born to die. But because of God, death- death, it's got meaning. It's punishment. It's not- not normal, not the way things are meant to be. But because of God, again- because of Jesus- it doesn't have to be the end. There's a way out, a way to life- and that way's found in the Lord Jesus. Alberta, I wish you understood." Or maybe he had said, "I wish you knew."_

Words, empty, meaningless words- and yet something in Alberta ached with (longing?)- she wasn't sure. She wished she remembered Eustace Clarence's words.

"It's our time to speak," Harold murmured in her ear, his hand warm against the small of her back.

 _Please don't move your hand,_ she thought, _I think I'll fall, I don't know how I'll stand._

But somehow her legs remembered how to stand, and she was walking up to the pulpit, walking beside the covered coffins.

Trembling, she looked at the paper in her hands.

Words. Empty words.

Closing her eyes, she remembered holding Eustace Clarence, as a baby, watched him walk so proudly and confidently. She remembered that indefinite pulse, that glow of an invisible bond, so intangible it weighed on her heart till the pride almost hurt, it was so vivid. She remembered, and it glowed more brightly yet, almost as if-

Opening her eyes, she gripped the sides of the lectern.

"Eustace Clarence was my son," she said, and then her voice broke as her vision wavered, and the memories came flooding in.

**Author's Note:**

> So... anyone who frequents the fanfiction.net area for Chronicles of Narnia may recognise this. But as a long-time lurker on A03, I finally got an account and thought I may as well put my works up :)


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